Saturday, February 11, 2017

It's amazing how 2 weeks in hospital have taught me so much (1)

I hope most of my loyal readers already know about my accident. If not if not, here's a very brief summary. I fell down the stairs and broke my left femur - to match a similar injury 8 years ago to my right thigh! There were complications so I was flat on my back and attached to everything for a week before I was able to stand up. So, that gave me loads of time to think especially during the long dark nights.

I've made the following resolutions.

To finally finish my WIP and go all out to get it published. I know I've said this before but I am really, really determined now. I even have got new ideas for it and because I was without paper or a laptop and tablet, everything was fizzing in my head. As a witty friend remarked. Must have been the result of all that morphine!

This is where it gets cheesy and I am in danger of turning into Pollyanna.


You see, the woman in the next bed to me has brittle bones due to life-long steroid use because of arthritis. She only snapped her tibia even when lying in her hospital bed after breaking her shoulder.  Although she could speak to her husband on her mobile, he refused to come in and see her because he has a 'thing' about hospitals. And yet I never saw her tearful or down-hearted. By the window lay a woman who was run over by a speeding taxi. At least he stopped and called an ambulance. He'd run over her pelvis and she'd been lying in bed for a month and was only just ready for physiotherapy And so and and so on...

Yes I am lucky. I'm home and reasonably mobile with one crutch. Which is why I am determined to take every opportunity that is offered to me, particularly with regard to the writing world. My days of attending writing conferences are over. I am not upset. The internet is here to rescue me. I am fired up to take on on-line novel-writing courses and work, work work. I have many good internet writing friends who support and encourage me when I'm in danger of feeling sorry for myself.




Some of you may know that I used to help my very good friend, Jo Derrick, when she became temporarily overwhelmed with submissions to her amazing QWF magazine. (And it was amazing.!) As a writer herself Jo became disillusioned with all those rejection slips that gave no reason for rejection at all. Yes, I know why most editors don't and that Jo she was making a rod for her own back! You should have read the abuse from rejected writers although most women were appreciative.

Having done so, I've realised how much love editing and appraising fiction. It is an amazing way to understand my own writing.  So I have opened the rest of February.to offer short appraisals of short stories of less than 2,500 words of any genre (except pornography or science fiction) or the first 2500 words of a novel for FREE! After March 1st 2017, I will ask for cheque payment. (I am not set up for any other way of being paid.) I will work out a fair fee and see where it goes from there.

Next post, I will write a short CV of my writing experience over the past 25 years. If you are prepared to give me a go, please email me at my name and surname with no dots then gmail dot.com. Please don't fill up my inbox with junk or nasty stuff or I will block you. Don't send me any over-long attachments or fail to respect my wishes and my time commitment. Enquire first and I look forward to receiving your emails. At first,  women writers only, please while I find my feet- literally as well!

Ready, Steady, Go!


2 comments:

  1. Wow, what an offer! I have never forgotten the feedback you gave me on my first ever short story (since school days) that I submitted to QWF with no idea at all about the process. You were so encouraging. I believe I am where I am now partly as a result of that long, considered email reply.

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  2. Sally, you are a brilliant editor and anyone you help will be very lucky indeed.

    (This is Jane Smith, by the way, but I can't seem to comment here as anything other than Anon.)

    ReplyDelete

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